Latest Contact Center Best Practices

An astounding 82% of today’s consumers say speed of service is the number one factor to a great customer experience. And as businesses increasingly seek ways to improve their customer service, many have turned to virtualization and self-service. Airlines use self check-in, restaurants allow customers to make their own reservations, and grocery stores have self check-out lines—the list goes on. In the case of contact centers specifically, 62% of best-in-class companies use interactive voice response platforms in some capacity to facilitate the delivery of fast but relevant customer service.

When a customer ends a call before it is answered by a live agent, the call is considered to be “abandoned”. Typically the result of long hold times, call abandonment can be a serious problem within contact centers, as it is often correlated with low CSAT scores, decreased revenue, and lost business. Consider this- more than sixty percent of consumers will hang up if their call is not answered in under five minutes, and more than eighty percent if their call is now answered in under ten. And while every industry and business is different, abandonment rates above 5% are considered to be problematic. How can contact centers decrease their call abandon rate?

As customer service continues to overtake price and product as a brand’s key differentiator, businesses are increasingly seeking out ways to help streamline and optimize every aspect of the customer experience, from queue management and hold times, to interactions and follow-ups. But for many of today’s leading contact centers, there is very little control over when a call is answered and by whom, and often no efficient or effective means of identifying callers prior to speaking with them. Consider this—while 59% of calls require identity verification, only 3% are handled entirely through automated processes (ContactBabel). For most, basic and static IVR menus(i.e. “press 1 for sales, press 2 for support”) are the primary means of differentiating callers and attempting to route them to the appropriate department, with little to no account for preexisting customer data or prior interactions.

An astounding 82% of today’s consumers say speed of service is the number one factor to a great customer experience. And as businesses increasingly seek ways to improve their customer service, many have turned to virtualization and self-service. Airlines use self check-in, restaurants allow customers to make their own reservations, and grocery stores have self check-out lines—the list goes on. In the case of contact centers specifically, 62% of best-in-class companies use interactive voice response platforms in some capacity to facilitate the delivery of fast but relevant customer service.

- 20-40% of yearly sales for small and mid-sized retailers takes place during the last two months of the year- 40% of consumers begin shopping before Halloween- Black Friday sales are expected to top $2.4 Billion this year, representing 28% YoY growth

And what does a rise in holiday shopping generally mean for businesses? More sales, obviously. But it also tends to imply an increase in call volume tied to clients inquiring about purchases, requesting additional support, making inquiries, and also submitting the occasional complaint.